


The Oink Oink Inc. Job

by Roshwen



Category: Leverage
Genre: Case Fic, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Humor, No Purple Giraffes Were Harmed In The Writing Of This Fic, TW for Child Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 01:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18561118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roshwen/pseuds/Roshwen
Summary: ‘This is DeeDee,’ Hardison says. ‘Four years old and until recently, proud owner of her very own Pippa. Until one afternoon, Pippa caught fire while DeeDee was cuddling with it, and now DeeDee is in the hospital with several second and third degree burns all over her upper torso.’‘Damn thing lit up like a Christmas tree,’ Eliot growls. ‘Mom told me her dad was right next to her, and it practically exploded out of nowhere. Snagged it away from her immediately, but it was already too late.’Or: When a faulty toy sends a four-year-old to the hospital with severe 2nd and 3rd degree burns, her mother turns to the Leverage crew for help. And the Leverage crew being the Leverage crew, they don't go in for half work either.





	The Oink Oink Inc. Job

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based (very loosely based) on a note I found in one of my old notebooks, which read 'four-year-old DeeDee, CEO of stuffed toy company Oink Oink Inc.'. This is... not _exactly_ what I was meant to do with that, I think, but it's close enough.
> 
> (Also yes, this takes place after S05. Also also yes, clients are still meeting with 'Mr. Ford'. It's just basic precaution measures, people, come on. Don't give out your real name to people you don't know and who are meeting you about something shady)

‘She could have died, Mr. Ford.’

The woman’s voice, despite her red and puffy eyes, is cold and hard as steel. ‘She could have… she _would_ have died. If Harry hadn’t been there to…’

She stops. Eliot says nothing; he just sits across from her and patiently waits until she has steeled herself again. As the silence drags on, he casts a dark glance at the innocuous looking stuffed toy that sits on the table between them. It’s probably supposed to be a pig. At least, it’s pink and vaguely pig-shaped but it’s painfully obvious that whoever designed this thing, has never seen a farm animal up close.

Eliot has. They tend not to have such bright blue eyes and ludicrous grins on their faces.

‘She’s still in the hospital,’ the woman continues at last. ‘She has already had three surgeries and they’re waiting for her to recover a little so they can… she needs one more skin graft, at least, and we can only hope and pray there won’t be any infection or, or…’

A tinny squeak echoes through the empty Brewpub as Eliot’s hand closes around the probably-a-pig. The woman flinches but presses on, determined. ‘And even if she… even if she... I mean. We are just barely breaking even as it is, and I don’t even know how we’ll be able to…’

‘Mrs. Alvarez, it’s alright.’

Eliot releases the pink abomination and leans forward, giving the woman as reassuring a smile as he can manage. ‘It’s alright. We’ll take care of that for you.’

The woman narrows her eyes. ‘It’s not just about the money, Mr. Ford.’

‘I know.’ Eliot’s smile turns ever so slightly and the woman nods. ‘I know. Don’t worry.’

\---

‘Alright, listen up and let me present to you our next mark: Liam Leeman, CEO of stuffed toy company Oink Oink Inc. And yes, I know, and I _do_ agree we should take them down for that alone, but that’s not the only crime against humanity they’re committing so hear me out.’

‘Can we take out his parents as well? I mean, no wonder he’s turned evil _. I’d_ turn evil if someone named me Liam Leeman.’

‘Parker, you’re a thief.’

‘Yeah, but not an _evil_ thief.’

Eliot quirks an eyebrow. Parker glares at him for a moment before turning back to Hardison, who is visibly trying not to roll his eyes at the two of them. ‘If I may?’

_‘Oink’_

‘And if I could _please_ have that back?’

_‘Oink’_

 ‘Parker.’

‘What? I think it’s cute. _Oink.’_

_‘Oink’_

 ‘It _is_ cute. Yeah. And also dangerous so if you could please… _thank you.’_

Parker pouts but still hands the stuffed pig over to Hardison, who very gently sets it down on his desk. ‘Now, as you said, these things look adorable. Guys, meet Pippa Pig. Pippa here is the flagship of Oink Oink Inc and she’s soft and fluffy and smells nice and she goes ‘oink’ when you press her belly.’

_‘Oink’_

‘Like that. But, Pippa has another side. A dark side, if you will.’

Behind Hardison, the image on the screens switches from bright and colorful toy ads to something far more serious. Two pictures of a girl, no more than four years old. On the left, she is smiling into the camera with an impish gleam in her dark eyes, her head a mass of unkempt black curls that are sticking up and flying away in every direction. On the right, that same girl is lying unconscious in a hospital bed, with her arm attached to various monitors and IV bags. Most of her hair has either been singed or shaved away and even though she is mostly covered by the blanket, the burn marks on her neck and jaw are still visible as angry red splotches, standing out vividly against the pale, sallow skin.

‘This is DeeDee,’ Hardison says. ‘Four years old and until recently, proud owner of her very own Pippa. Until one afternoon, Pippa caught fire while DeeDee was cuddling with it, and now DeeDee is in the hospital with several second and third degree burns all over her upper torso.’

‘Damn thing lit up like a Christmas tree,’ Eliot growls. ‘Mom told me her dad was right next to her, and it practically exploded out of nowhere. Snagged it away from her immediately, but it was already too late.’

Parker sits up, her face hard and the toy shenanigans forgotten. ‘How does a toy explode like that?’

‘Well, it’s actually very simple to make this toy explode,’ Hardison says, gesturing towards his desk where, next to the intact Pippa, there is an assortment of pink fur, stuffing, wiring and something that looks like a circuit board. ‘If you don’t care about little things like safety regulations, that is. You see, first there’s the wiring of Pippa’s soundbox. That’s how she makes that adorable _oink_ noise. It’s also, coincidentally, very prone to short-circuiting after a while.’

He takes the circuit board and presses a button on the back. It oinks faintly.

He presses it again. This time, it does not oink, but releases a volley of sparks into the air that fizzle and drop back onto the workbench. Parker’s eyes go wide.

‘So, that’s already bad enough and not something you want the thing your two-year-old is holding to do. But wait, there’s more.’ Hardison puts the circuit board back on the dissected Pippa pile and picks up the stuffing and the fur. ‘Now, we all know there is a lot to do about flame retardants in children’s products…’

‘… there is?’

‘Man, let me tell you: CPSC reports make for _fascinating_ reading, trust me.’

Eliot glares. ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

‘Alright, suit yourself.’ Hardison shrugs and grabs something else from the desk before putting the fur and stuffing in a small metal trash can and setting it a decent distance away from his precious electronics. ‘But, setting that discussion aside for now, I’m also pretty sure toys aren’t supposed to do _this.’_

With a flourish that has Eliot roll his eyes, he holds the lighter over the trashcan, clicks it so it releases a spark and then jumps back as a three foot high flame jets into the air with a _woosh_ , bathing the entire apartment into an orange haze. It dies down after a couple of seconds, the flames slowly diminishing until Hardison finally gets up again and douses the remaining smoldering mess with the fire extinguisher, leaving nothing but acrid smoke, white foam and the stink of burning plastic.

‘So,’ he says, turning around to his partners. Who are watching in horror, fury and (in the case of Parker) a kind of worrying fascination. ‘Any questions?’

‘Let me guess,’ Eliot says slowly, through gritted teeth. ‘Company’s cutting corners. Circuit board and fabric is being made cheap, and either not being safety tested at all or the results are thrown out of the window. Company presents some false safety test results instead, gets all the approvals they need, releases the toy, boom. Profit.’

‘And boom. Burning kids,’ Hardison adds, shrugging when Eliot glowers. ‘Yeah. That’s… yeah. That’s basically it. Two years ago, Oink Oink Inc was on the verge of bankruptcy. Now, after some extensive company reorganization, they’ve managed to become one of the leading competitors on the stuffed animal market. Which sounds a lot more adorable than it actually is.’

‘And the kids are payin’ the price,’ Eliot finishes. He sits back, drags a hand over his face. ‘Alright. Now, any ideas about burnin’ this company to the ground? _Not literally, Parker._ ’

Parker pouts, but only for a second. ‘I’ve got an idea. Hardison? What does Liam Leeman like to do?’

\---

The answer to that question is rather a surprise. But after Parker has been staring at the screen for a full minute, a puzzled frown on her brow, and after Eliot has hoisted himself back into his chair after a dramatic burst of laughter, Hardison explains with a sunny grin: ‘Liam Leeman, lady and gentleman, is an aspiring writer. Very much aspiring and also very very _bad_ at it. Here, look at this.’

The text is displayed loud and on the screen, but of course Hardison has to do a dramatic reading, complete with voices and arm gestures:

_Mr. Fitzpatrick had fiery dark blue eyes, as deep as a summer’s lake. His hair was black as a raven’s wing and cut perfectly. He was tall, dark, handsome, rich and the CEO of a multi million dollar company. In short: he was every girl’s dream guy and he was pretty sure even some guys were in love with him. Not that he would ever sleep with a guy, because that was just gross. He liked girls._

_He walked into the office and greeted his secretary, Helma. She was Swedish and hot. ‘Hello,’ he said.’_

_‘Hello,’ Helma greeted back. Fitzpatrick would probably sleep with her tonight, he thought. She was really into him, he could tell._

‘And he _hasn’t_ managed to publish this?’ Eliot asks, shaking his head. ‘That’s… yeah, alright, it’s bad. But he’s a CEO, he could’ve easily paid his way to publishing, right?’

‘Yeah, but he doesn’t want to,’ Parker says before Hardison can get there. ‘I think? He doesn’t want to make people publish his book, he just wants them to publish it because they actually think it’s good.’

Hardison nods. ‘Exactly. Which is why he’s been sending it to publishers over and over and over, all under different pseudonyms in the hope that one of them will say yes eventually. I mean,’ he shakes his head. ‘You gotta admit, the guy’s persistent.’

‘Yeah, and he’s also hurting kids while waxing poetic about cerulean orbs,’ Eliot points out. ‘Let’s take this wannabe Hemingway down.’

Hardison blinks. ‘Hemingway? Really? That’s who you’re going with?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Just saying man. _’_

_‘Shut. Up.’_

\---

‘Mr. Leeman? Your three o’clock is here.’

‘I don’t have a three o’clock.’

‘Mr. Leeman, good afternoon. My name is Leopold Penn and I represent Olsson and Penn Book Publishers.’

‘Oh, _that_ three o’clock. Stacey, could you please call off my other meetings this afternoon? Just tell them that something’s come up and I have to reschedule, terribly sorry, can’t be helped, _hello,_ Mr. Penn. Please, _do_ sit down. Would you like some tea? Coffee? Something stronger? _Stacey!_ Get Mr. Penn something to drink, _now!’_

‘Don’t worry about that, please, Mr. Leeman.’ A slow, reassuring smile and a pair of twinkling blue eyes behind some wire-framed glasses. The man looks a bit scruffy for a literary agent, that’s true; his hair is a bit longer than Mr. Leeman usually approved of and his complexion is a bit more rugged than that of the dozens or so publishing agents he had seen to date. But all that is disregarded and forgotten completely when the man continues in that same southern drawl: ‘I’m here to talk about your book and to ask you: do you have any plans for a sequel yet?’

\---

Mr. Leeman did not have any plans for a sequel yet. Which was great, because it meant that Eliot/Leopold Penn could _really_ drag this meeting out: discussing the ‘first draft’ so far, heaping praise on to the plot ( _‘I’ve never seen such twists and turns in my life. The way Fitz rescues his secretary Helma from those thugs? I cried. Real ters man, I’m tellin’ ya_ ), the characters (‘ _Just how did you come up with the character of Fitzpatrick, man. He’s… he’s a dream guy. That’s what he is_ ), and the prose (Scintillating _dialogue, honestly. Sparkling. Just._ Sizzling _on the page right there_ ) until the haples Mr. Leeman was so thoroughly flustered that he could barely utter more than two words at once, both of those words being ‘Mr.Penn.’ When Eliot finally left his office again, shaking his head and swallowing a satisfied snigger, it had long gone dark and Hardison and Parker were waiting for him outside with Pippa Pig’s safety test results. The _real_ test results.

\---

‘Do you know why I hate this guy?’ Parker asks later that evening when they’re back at the Brew Pub. She is in the middle of holding a staring contest with a purple giraffe, courtesy of their earlier toy headquarter heist that day, but apparently this doesn’t mean she can’t hold a conversation with Hardison and Eliot at the same time.

‘Because he’s hurting kids, Parker?’ Eliot says. ‘’Cause you know. That puts him pretty high on my list. And my list is _long.’_

‘Well, yeah,’ Parker shrugs and sits back, conceding defeat to the giraffe. It smirks at Hardison, as if it knows. ‘But he’s also. He’s hurting them with their toys. Kids should have toys. _I_ had toys.’

Hardison frowns. And tries not to stare at the giraffe. ‘You did?’

‘I had Bunny.’

‘Oh. Right.’

In fact, Parker still has Bunny. It has a place of honor on top of their wardrobe, and Hardison has made sure it has no direct line of sight to their bed. It’s bad enough this giraffe is staring at him; he doesn’t need a twenty-year-old decaying rabbit thrown into the mix as well. ‘Eliot, what about you? You have a special teddy bear or something?’

It’s half a joke. No. It _is_ a joke, and a question that could not be more rhetorical because trying to getting any kind of backstory out of Eliot Spencer is like pulling ticks out of a tiger’s pelt: you only get out alive if you are very careful, you know what you are doing and, most importantly, you know when to give up and start running. And even then you might end up covered in blood and regretting every decision you ever made in your entire life.

But there’s silence. Some not-sniggering from the purple giraffe, who has now defeated two out of three, and a quiet voice that says: ‘I had a dinosaur named Wuffles.’

More silence.

‘It was… a gift from my grandma. Rosie,’ Eliot continues, carefully not making eye contact with anybody, including the giraffe. ‘My brother got one too. He named it Nebuchadnezzar, because it was the first word he’d learned to write.’

Hardison blinks.

Opens his mouth.

Closes it again.

And turns back to stare at the giraffe some more.

\----

A week later, the news breaks that Oink Oink Inc. CEO Liam Leeman has been arrested on counts of fraud, embezzlemend, racketeering and money laundering. _Quite_ the catch for the FBI, as special agent McSweeten is only too happy to tell his drinking buddy, Agent Hagen, when he meets her at the bar later that night.

‘It was the strangest thing,’ McSweeten says. ‘We got an invite to a private reading of this man’s debut novel. An hour later, we received a tip that that reading it might be of particular interest to us. And so me and my partner, we weren’t sure what to make of it but we had nothing better to do, so we went ahead. Figured it couldn’t hurt, at least and you know. Perhaps we’d get some literary scoop or something.’

‘That sounds weird,’ Agent Hagen says, sipping her mocktail. ‘But what happened next?’

McSweeten pauses. Lifts his glass, puts it down again and grins. ‘He just… I don’t think he was reading his novel, because I don’t think his novel is about safety reports. Or how to move money you’re your company around, or how to set up multiple shell companies in the Cayman Islands.’

Agent Hagen’s eyes go wide. ‘He just told you? Like that?’

‘I don’t think he planned to,’ McSweeten says. ‘I think someone tricked him. Or something. Or made a mistake and gave him the wrong papers to read. But it still counts as a confession, so we took him in, along with pretty much everything we could find on his company’s servers. And…’ he whistled. ‘Ho boy. Turned out Mr. Leeman has been very, very naughty.’

Agent Hagen nods sagely. ‘It’s a good thing you caught him, then.’

McSweeten smiles and raises his glass before finally taking a sip. ‘Cheers to that.’

\---

Little DeeDee Alvarez was not a happy bunny. For one thing, everything still hurt even though the doctors had given her enough medicine to make her go very woozy. She was also still in the hospital and she had been there forever and her mom had said she _still_ couldn’t go home. She had to stay here, in this boring room with these boring other children who did nothing but cry or watch boring TV all day and she was _bored._

She wanted to go home. And she wanted her Pippa back. Her mom had said that Pippa was gone and she could not get a new one and that was just _unfair._ All of this wasn’t Pippa’s fault at all and it made no sense in DeeDee’s four-year-old brain that she couldn’t just. Get a new Pippa.

She was still contemplating the unjustness of it all when the door to the ward was pushed open. Usually this meant one of the nurses would come by and ask her how she was feeling. Deedee had just decided she didn’t want anything to do with the nurses today, when there was a weird noise. The weird noise was immediately followed by Lily, who was in the bed closest to the door, going: ‘ _What the fuck!’_

‘ _Lily,’_ came a scolding voice. That must be Nurse Gail, who was very stern. But she didn’t _sound_ stern, not like normal and when DeeDee caught sight of her, she could see why.

_‘Holy moses!’_

_‘DeeDee!’_

‘… sorry Nurse Gail.’

‘That’s quite alright. Now, all of you, get over here and help me bring all of this inside, will you?’

\---

‘But… where did this all _come_ from?’ Maria Alvarez asks, still staring in disbelief at her daughter’s hospital bed. Her daughter herself is completely invisible under the mountain of stuffed toys, and only a slight shifting and giggling every now and then indicates that there’s actually still life underneath the heap of vibrantly colored fur. There are teal-colored rhinos. There are yellow bears with red ears. There are dogs, cats, zebras, dinosaurs, alpacas, horses, every animal in the book in every color imaginable, although for some reason, there is a curious absence of pigs.

Nurse Gail shrugs and shakes her head, absentmindedly squeezing a bright green and orange zebra in one hand. ‘No idea. They just… showed up. We had them checked, of course, and deep-cleaned ‘cause you know. We have to be careful. But they were fine and most of them are even hypo-allergenic, so. We thought we might as well hand them out.’

The pile of plush shifts again, sending a large stuffed shark (and who ever heard of a stuffed _shark_ but it’s here, it’s right here) hurtling towards the unforgiving linoleum.

Maria manages to grab its tail right in time. And when Nurse Gail has gone to scold two older kids who have started some kind of stuffed leopard fighting ring, she hugs the shark tight to her chest, unable to suppress the grin even though her vision is going a bit blurry.

‘Thank you, Mr. Ford. Thank you.’

\---

‘Parker.’

‘Hm?’

‘What is that giraffe still doing here? And, more importantly, why is it _here?_ In our _bedroom?’_

‘It’s where I like to keep my trophies. You know that.’

‘It’s _staring at me,_ Parker.’

‘Damn it Hardison, shut up. And _man_ up, it’s a giraffe, it ain’t a bloody Chucky doll.’

‘Thank you. See? Eliot isn’t scared.’

‘I’m not _scared._ I’m… I’m… I’m _wary,_ that’s all. Wary of weird-ass purple giraffes with yellow eyes bigger than their head, like any normal person.’

‘Just… go to sleep, man. I knocked out half a dozen Russians for you today, pretty sure I’ll be able to handle one weird-ass giraffe if it comes to that.’

‘OK I know you’re joking but you know what? That actually helps, so thank you very much. Yes. I’ll be going to sleep now but if that thing starts moving, I want you to know that I warned y’all. Alright? Alright.’

‘Sure babe.’

‘You got it.’

‘Thank you. Good night babe, other babe.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Night.’

\---

‘His name’s Henry.’

‘ _Shut up, Parker.’_


End file.
